A hopefully reasonable, literate and charitable place for Catholic musicians and others involved in the Church's liturgical practices to exchange and share personal perspectives of liturgical philosophy, law, and performance. And the occasional left turn might pop up in the headlights.

Thursday, July 07, 2016

They Paved Paradise, but Look at This Beautiful Parking Lot!

This is the second part of an examination (fisking, actually) of an article authored by Michael Clayton in the July 5 2016 edition of "The New Liturgical Movement" about sacred music composition.

Benedict
XVI’s book, ANew Song for the Lord; Faith and Christ
and Liturgy Today,
(tells) us that it is the mark of true creativity that an artist or composer
can “break out of the esoteric circle” – i.e., the circle of their friends at
dinner parties – and connect with “the many.”

Let’s just cut to the chase: the golden era of polyphony
rests upon the bedrock of one of the most esoteric disciplines within music,
namely species counterpoint. And its elegance depends to this day upon the
idiomatic/idiosyncratic milieu under which it behaves. The reception great
polyphony receives is more due to those vagaries than the theories, and that is
precisely why the realization of the conciliar edicts for composers to
inextricably ties their works to the attributes of chant and polyphony will
seldom surpass the artistic merit of their forebears. For example, composer
Kevin Allen (whom the author fails to cite) composes polyphony idiomatically
with the inclusion of modern cluster harmonies (ala Lauridsen, Part, Whitacre
and others) that cannot strictly observe species counterpoint. That is a whole
new layer of….ESOTERICISM. Is it possible, perish the thought, that beloved
Pope Ratzinger had a sort of Holy Grail notion of there being a music of the
spheres that would appeal and “connect with the ‘many’?” Or worse, was he
ratifying the very Germanic notion of Gebrauchsmusick,
purposed if less aesthetically fashioned “music from need?” If the former, that’s
to be heard in heaven I suppose. The latter found in many of the works of
post-conciliar composers of all stripes.

This grave responsibility is one that
thus far, it seems to me, the vast majority of Christian artists in almost
every creative discipline have not been able to take on. That is not to say,
however, that the task facing creative artists today is easy. Indeed, it may be
so hard than it needs an inspired genius in any particular field to show us the
way before it can happen.

This strikes me as a disingenuous comparison between
patronage based art/sacred music composition of the 17-19th
centuries and the disparate modern cultures of music generation. Somewhere
along the line from Palestrina-Bach-Monteverdi-Haydn-Mozart-Bruckner-Faure
(just a randomly chosen list) the borders of art and sacred expanded greatly,
while the popular lines were being blurred in Salzburg and Vienna. The window
of hope for an “inspired genius” to “show us the way” closed a long time ago.
And another elephant in the room is the stark reality that the global village
of the current century doesn’t define itself by, ahem, the colonial notion that
Western aesthetics make the world turn ‘round. Yes, everyone knows they can
sing Mozart in Ghana, Korea and moon even. That doesn’t mean everyone will
appreciate an all-Mozart diet universally. Given that we’ve been broadcasting
sound waves into space for over a century, it’s just as likely that alien
civilizations prefer John Williams to Johann S. Bach.

The
problem is that this sophistication is one that fragments rather than unifies.
People today know what they like and dislike, and they are sensitive to even
subtle changes in style, and will react strongly to them.

Can we say: “The Rite of Spring (Le sacre du Printemps)”
Sensitive to change? Heck, they literally tore the place down. But now there’s
likely more percussion heard in Life Teen Bands than in Stravinski’s work and
no one blanches at the ballet anymore, while they rightly abhor the caged (as
in John) drummer-kid up in the choir loft. Sophistication is inherently
discriminatory. Elegance and beauty, not so much. But we can’t agree on whether
Aquinas defended personal taste as a criteria for appreciating beauty. Is a
coherent and flowing Celtic ballad as beautiful as Bach’s Air (for the G
String)? Only if re-packaged by Vaughn Williams, Holst or Stanford maybe,
according to musicologists and aesthetes. Every tongue that’s wagged upon “On
eagles’ wings” is well aware that likely millions of catholics think that tune
is absolutely fabulous. “Ah,” say the critics, “but it’s not beautiful.” They’d
better duck as Aunt Sally’s right-cross is headed their way.

there is
no form of secular music that I know of, classical or contemporary, that currently
exists and will appeal to all people.

Oh, I dunno ‘bout that. It seems that everybody from Strauss
to Rieu loves a good waltz, even space stations and floating monoliths. But a
waltz is too sing-songy for serious consideration doncha know.

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About Me

Charles Culbreth, parish music director, has been involved in Roman Catholic music ministry professionally since 1970. He and his wife Wendy have served the communities of the newly formed Catholic Church of Visalia (St. Mary's, Holy Family, St. Thomas parishes) since 1991. Prior to that he served as DM at the Cathedral of Sts. John the Baptist and Divine in Fresno, CA. Charles completed both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in the California State University system, his masters degree in Choral Music Conducting and Church Music. He retired as choral instructor at Redwood High School in Visalia and accepted the post of Director of Music and Liturgy at St. Mary's. Charles was a member of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians from 1979 to 2001 and a member and officer of the regional division of the American Choral Directors Association.
He joined the Church Music Association in 2007.
Charles received recognition from his beloved Holy Father Benedict XVI, the Benemerenti Award in May of 2011.